Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 35 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Caught Stealing

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Action, Thriller, Comedy

Director:  Darren Aronofsky

Starring:  Austin Butler, Regina King, Zöe Kravitz, Matt Smith, Vincent D'Onfrio, Liev Schrieber, Carol Kane

Darren Aronofsky's latest is an adaptation of a book series by Charlie Huston, which Huston provides the screenplay for.  Austin Butler stars as a man who is unwittingly swept up in neighbor Matt Smith's dirty dealings, as a bunch of baddies start knocking on his door thinking he's his accomplice.  The movie is a departure for Aronofsky, taking a break from his metaphorical dramas (which I'm assuming is what Mother! was) and taking a swing at an action thriller.  Aronofsky's eye allows for some unique framing of frantic action making a furious movie that is always fun to watch, even if its narrative gets jumpy.  Matt Smith steals the movie, which is typical of the former Doctor Who star as he's given the most colorful character and is less of an avatar for chase scenes than everyone else is.  There's not a lot that's surprising or substantial about the movie but it's a quality chase movie for those looking for a little bit of a ride.

The Roses

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Jay Roache

Starring:  Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Samburg, Kate McKinnon, Allison Janney, Belinda Bromilow, Sunita Mani, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Demetriou, Zöe Chao

Most of the black comedy has been sucked out of this update of War of the Roses, opting to turn into a screwball comedy to play up the strengths of its leads.  It survives based on the fact that those leads are so goddamn funny in it.  Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch star as the titular couple, who fall in love and set off to persue their dreams with the perfect marriage.  When Colman's career takes off and Cumberbatch's fails spectacularly, a resentment between the two begins to swell until it boils over into violence.  Interestingly enough, the movie isn't particularly interested in mutual fault between the two.  Cumberbatch is clearly the aggressor throughout the movie, while Colman's only crime is that she's good at what she does.  I think the idea is more interesting if they're both just bitter, awful people, like Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner once upon a time.  They both certainly become nagging toward each other, as most of the movie's comedy has little choice but to envelop itself with amusing passive aggressive quips because it refuses to commit to making either of them unlikeable.  Or maybe Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch are just incapable of being unlikeable because they're just so damn cute when they're angry.  The movie can't help but coast on that cast charisma.  I have nothing but intense adoration for Olivia Colman and think quite highly of Benedict Cumberbatch, as well.  The supporting cast is in and out, making sure they don't outshine the stars at play.  The biggest supporting roles are Andy Samburg and Kate McKinnon as their neighbors, but they're often relegated to reaction shots as Colman and Cumberbatch open fire.  The same can be said for the rest of the support, where this movie becomes the second movie this week to feature a former Doctor Who as a supporting player, offering up recent fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa in a charming, if limited, role.  The Roses probably isn't as memorable as Danny DeVito's famed adaptation from 1989, but, in it's own way, it might be more fun.

The Short Game

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Drama, Comedy, Sports

Director:  Frank Sanza

Starring:  Ben Kreiger, Mackenzie Astin, Catherine Cunningham, Owen Himfar, Tyler Lofton, Emma Parks

A down-on-his-luck youth hopes to gain a college scholarship through golfing, and his game takes a turn for the better when his autistic little brother becomes his caddy.  This relatively simple-minded movie has only one sole ambition, which is to be a feel-good movie for a pre-existing target audience.  This movie may hold mild success in that the audience it caters to holds little scrutiny for a film like this, but when it actually plays in theaters with movies that actually know what they're doing, The Short Game doesn't hold up.  And that's not me being biased against this type of movie.  I'm all in favor of movies like this, but if a movie wants to succeed in being a "feel-good" experience, there needs to be elements of authenticity to its emotional manipulation.  The Short Game wouldn't be that bad if it didn't come off as plastic as a Barbie Dream House.

Just about every character in this movie is one-dimensional, they all have simple goals and walk from point A to B, delivering their dialogue like well-behaved actors who just recently memorized words.  The movie doesn't really try to live with them or try to make them feel organic, and it's almost astounding just how fake everyone comes off as.  There is one sole exception that the movie can learn from, if it took the time to nourish it.  The main character has a friend who follows him around with a camera and documents his whatever-the-fuck sports journey, and she is probably the most flavorful character in the movie.  She's underwritten, like the rest of the movie, but she has a vibe.  Nobody else in the movie does, and that makes her the standout.  If the rest of the movie had a vibe, this movie wouldn't be such a joyless experience telling a story that's trying to be joyful.  The movie has it so bad at expressing emotion that it even takes a traumatizing turn halfway through, which the movie plays it up as a big deal, but the film is such monotone melodrama with limited personality that it doesn't really matter.  Otherwise, most of the movie is supposed to be funny because it has this broad, warm "gee whiz" grin on its face while delivering cornball wit, like an episode of Full House.  It never really generates a laugh because of this, but I'll give it credit for trying to at least have some charm about it, even if it's the charm of a ham sandwich sitcom.

Ultimately, even if I were to give the rest of the movie a pass for being trite nothing, the film's third act is where it fails the most, coming down to an important golf competition where the bad golfers are bitter because his loving brother/caddy seems good at geometry because of autistic reasons (like in all movies, autism gives you superpowers).  The movie's final conflict has something to do with the little brother being penalized for...something...and getting kicked off the field.  Maybe I'm not brushed up on golf rules, but it really just looked to me like he stood in place and did the things a caddy is supposed to do.  I don't really know what happened and the movie doesn't make it clear.  It just invents a complication out of nothing and expects us to buy it.  It doesn't work.  The film could have found a creative bone in its body and figured it's shit out, but it wants simplistic hurdles to overcome because it wants the mental hurdles to be the real challenge.  A smart movie would have done both at the same time.  Or you just don't do a hurdle at all if it's going to be half-assed.  And that's just the movie in a nutshell, a movie that loves all the touching tropes of family dramas but doesn't seem to understand how to make them work, so it just crams them onto the screen expecting the same outcome.  I want to say this movie's heart is in the right place, because it just wants to be a simple movie about brothers who love each other, but none of that heart really burst through in the filmmaking.

The Toxic Avenger

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy, Action, Horror, Superhero

Director:  Macon Blair

Starring:  Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Julia Davis, Jonny Coyne

Filmed several years ago, this remake of Troma's biggest IP sat on a shelf for a good long while for seemingly no reason.  It's easy to make a Toxic Avenger movie and it's easy to want to make a Toxic Avenger movie.  Toxic Avenger (and Troma productions in general) is such a self-indulgant brand that you make any film for yourself and the audience gathers by happenstance.  When it comes time to actually advertise that you've made a relatively (in comparison to other movies in the series) large-budget Toxic Avenger movie, suddenly it sinks in that you've made an expensive Toxic Avenger movie and don't know who you're marketing it toward.  A lot of people have heard the title, but unless you brave the bowels of dumpster filmmaking, you probably haven't even watched a Toxic Avenger movie.  It's pretty crazy stuff, and unless you've actually witnessed a movie produced by Troma, it's probably difficult to actually paint a picture of what a Troma movie is.  Grainy filmstock, barely-there craftsmanship, aburdist humor, and little-to-nothing to mask that everything taking place is fake.  Whatever you're picturing, drag it through the mud for five hours and maybe it would look like a Toxic Avenger movie.  I've seen the first Toxic Avenger a couple of times.  It's never been opportune for me to watch any of the sequels, but I definitely would if they were in front of me and had an afternoon to kill.  But if you have to ask if it's worth a watch for anyone else, I'd have to take it by a case-by-case basis.  But 95% of the time, the answer is "Good god, no."

The new take on Toxie stars Peter Dinklage as a janitor dying from [REDACTED] brain disease.  Because obvious bad businessman Kevin Bacon won't help him, Dinklage takes matters into his own hands by trying to steal the money he needs for treatment.  He is caught and dumped into toxic waste, which hideously deforms him while also making him absurdly strong.  These situations always result in creating a new superhero, this one known as the Toxic Avenger!  It's a more detailed story than the original, who was just a nerd caught in a practical joke gone haywire.  I guess you could say Dinklage's take on Toxie has more pathos, but there's little time for emotion when there are jaws to tear out.  And those who want a Toxic Avenger movie to do what a Toxic Avenger movie does will get it.  Those who want it to be done better will also get it, though they're still watching something that is definitely a Toxic Avenger movie.  The new movie takes the hammy absurdist exploitation of Troma's stylings and combines it with the heightened otherworldly kitsch of Tim Burton's Batman, Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy, or Chuck Russell's The Mask.  One could call it the Fury Road of Toxic Avenger movies.  It's a movie that takes what preceded it and takes it up to a level we never expected it to go to, and succeeding more than you could ever imagine.  Unlike Fury Road, the reboot of Toxic Avenger is probably not going to convert a lot of new people to its franchise, because Troma movies are a niche within a niche.  You already know if you love it, though.  And you probably saw this movie on opening weekend already.

Netflix & Chill

The Thursday Murder Club

⭐️⭐️

Streaming On:  Netflix

Genre:  Mystery, Comedy

Director:  Chris Columbus

Starring:  Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, David Tennant

Following in the footsteps of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, yet another popular book series has been handed to Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire mastermind Chris Columbus to turn into a hopeful film franchise.  Netflix is probably hoping to have a reasonable counter for the murder mystery audience once their contract with Rian Johnson is up with the release of Wake Up Dead Man in a few months.  I've been reading a lot of Agatha Christie and classic Perry Mason lately, so a dip into the Thursday Murder Club was something I took rather kindly to.  The book it's based on is pretty fun.  It digresses from its story too easily for my tastes, which is in line with its elderly protagonists who drift off into minor digressions and small-talk in general, but it's a pleasant read.  The book centers on a quartet of retirees played by powerhouse players Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie, who meet weekly and go through old case files of unsolved murders, coming up with their own theories to cold cases (you would think they would start their own podcast, but maybe that's too close to Only Murders in the Building).  They soon find themselves in the midst of fresh murder mystery, as a brand new corpse drops in their laps, linked to the shady business dealings of landowners trying to tear down the retirement home, headed by David Tennant.

THREE movies with a former Doctor Who in a supporting role?  This one sharing the screen with a former James Bond?  What have I done to be this spoiled?

The movie version of this beloved novel plays out like cinematic comfort food for a good long while.  The presentation is cozy and fluffy, and the reliable cast gives it charisma.  The movie does stay in line with the book for a good long while, even if it is a tad streamlined while cutting out some of the book's most emotionally resonate subplots.  I'd hesitate to be critical of that, because the movie probably demanded more plot focus, but it does feel like it lost some of the more interesting chapters in translation.  With that in mind, as the film hits the home stretch, it's suddenly in a hurry and rewrites the entire third act.  The reveals are the same (most of them, anyway), but it's done while trying to impress more unneeded urgency and get all of the loose ends tied as swiftly as possible.  It's a messy affair.  When one crafts a mystery, the one thing you need to nail is the ending.  The film version of the Thursday Murder Club sadly rushes to finish the job, soiling itself in its seat while doing so.  The film is light and passable, otherwise.  The cast is great and it's an easy evening watch.  You can't help but wish it were more charming and fun than it is, though.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

The Bad Guys 2 ⭐️⭐️1/2

Eden ⭐️⭐️

F1 ⭐️⭐️

The Fantastic 4:  First Steps ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Freakier Friday ⭐️⭐️1/2

Honey Don't! ⭐️⭐️

Jaws ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Jurassic World:  Rebirth ⭐️1/2

Lilo & Stitch ⭐️⭐️

The Naked Gun ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ne Zha 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Nobody 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Relay ⭐️⭐️1/2

Superman ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Weapons ⭐️⭐️⭐️

New To Digital

I Know What You Did Last Summer ⭐️⭐️

My Mother's Wedding ⭐️⭐️

Oh, Hi! ⭐️⭐️1/2

Sketch ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Together ⭐️⭐️⭐️

New To Physical

Karate Kid:  Legends ⭐️⭐️

Lilo & Stitch ⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!

Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 34 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Eden

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Thriller

Director:  Ron Howard

Starring:  Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl, Sydney Sweeney, Felix Kammerer, Toby Wallace, Richard Roxburgh

Not uninteresting psychological thriller succumbs to a hypothesis that I presented last week where I noted that if Sydney Sweeney is in your movie, chances are that it's not very good.  In Sweeney's defense, this is probably the best performance I've seen from her.  I was filled with dread the minute I heard her speak with a German accent, having flashbacks to Scarlet Johansson choking on a British accent in My Mother's Wedding, but Sweeney is surprisingly subtle and nuanced here.  It's the movie around her that is failing her.

Based on true accounts of the early settlers on Floreana Island, Sweeney and Daniel Brühl are husband and wife hoping to escape the rise of fascism in Germany (we all know what Germany was boiling toward in the 1930's), they follow the example of isolationists Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby by settling on an island in the Galápagos.  Law begins to unravel at the sight of more people jumping into his uncivilized paradise, which begins to tilt even further when "baroness" Ana de Armas shows up with the intent on building a hotel.  If nothing else, Eden is a movie that reinforces the fact that I don't like people either, so Jude Law is right.  Let's start a hashtag.  The movie isn't uninteresting but it feels as if so many of its elements are just slightly to the left of what would make it a memorable experience.  The movie is very raw, but it doesn't feel visceral.  The story presented is very compelling, but the script feels choppy.  The cast is uniformly exceptional and are often giving their A-game, but every role is underwritten and there isn't a lot for them to build upon.

On that last point, if the movie is worth seeing at all, it's because the actors are all here and pushing themselves.  I've already written about Sweeney, but Ana de Armas is shooting everything in her arsenal to make sure eyes are on her.  She's in an impossible position where she's playing a ridiculous character who is mostly performative with a motive that doesn't seem housed in logic, but de Armas plays the role knowing that if she has to play a manipulative one-dimensional bitch then she's going to spend every moment with the camera on her positively eating.  "You are the epitome of perfection," she says to herself, admiring her beauty in the mirror.  I'm not inclined to disagree, though she's also sharing the screen with two other beauties in Sweeney and Kirby.  Sweeney is made up to look relatively plain jane, though Kirby spends most of the movie elbow deep in pig shit and somehow still looks like one of the sexiest women alive, so that might also be the epitome of perfection.  It's too bad that Kirby's role is disappointingly limited.  More screen time is given to onscreen husband Jude Law, who is in total man-on-the-edge mode and loves to let the audience see that he is teetering.  Daniel Brühl doesn't get to have quite as much fun with his rigid character learning how to rough it but he is a reliable straight man to all the big performances around him.  It's too bad that the movie misspelled his name in the end credits, opting to not look for typeface for the "ü" and just sounding it out as "Bruehl."  That also seems to sum up the movie, where it probably could have done it right but took an easy out.

Honey Don't!

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Ethan Coen

Starring:  Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans

It's not often you see the Coen Brothers fail to set film snobs on fire.  The Ladykillers, maybe.  They also wrote the bonkers Sam Raimi misfire Crimewave.  And, if you ask Bill Murray, Garfield is their worst movie.  But it's been a while since we've heard a resounding "eeeeeeeeeeeh" heard around film circles surrounding their output than Ethan Coen's solo effort Drive-Away Dolls, a movie about two lesbians stealing Matt Damon's penis that's fine, probably, but only kinda funny and kinda nothing.  It takes balls to go "Fuck you, it's a trilogy now," but that's what Ethan Coen did.  I respect your tenacity, Mr. Coen.  We need more of that spirit in filmmaking.  That doesn't mean Honey Don't! fares much better, but we're getting a third one whether it's any good or not.  Will it also be mediocre?  Doesn't matter.  Will it also star Margaret Qualley?  Probably.  Will she have even more simulated sex scenes with lady co-stars?  Most likely.  I mean, if I had Margaret Qualley in my movie and she wanted to do a full scene with her face planted in between another woman's legs, I'd tell her "Sure.  Let's do that."

The second installment of Coen's "Lesbian B-Movie" trilogy sees Qualley playing a private investigator named Honey O'Donahue, who investigates the deaths and disappearances of young girls in the area, some linked to a religious cult run by Chris Evans.  That's what little can be discerned from the story in this movie because it's not really about anything.  The movie changes subjects quite frequently, and not in a episodic sort of way.  Characters come in-and-out of the story to the point that they never have the presence to have relevance to anything, and they duck out in attempts to subvert expectations of the audience about where the film is going.  There is no plot to this movie, just things happening.  Some are probably related, but most of it is a waste of time.  The movie could make up for this with a sense of humor, which is present but infrequent in delivery.  The comedy of the movie toes a line of wanting to be hilarious but also a high-end endevor that can be watched straight, which clashes with the heightened performances of the characters.  It's like watching a version of Airplane! that thinks its too serious to commit to surrealism.

In all fairness, the movie feels like Coen is cracking up during every single take.  The movie feels like it was made for himself.  I don't have any complaint about that, but that doesn't mean I don't have opinions on what would have improved it.  As a P.I. story, a little intrigue would have been nice.  The story is so non-commital that it never builds any.  I think Coen was attempting to adhere closely to a formula of exploitation films of the 70's, which weren't about premise and more about vibes, violence, and sex.  He does actually achieve this, but the film is an idiosyncratic copycat right down to the weaknesses.  Coen never attempts to add his own strengths to the formula he's homaginizing.  Though he does succeed in tickling with a sprinkle of fun dialogue every now and again.

"I'll stick with my dildo.  It helps me open myself and doesn't have a creep attached."

Ne Zha 2

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Fantasy, Comedy

Director:  Jiaozi

Starring:  (English dub version) Crystal Lee, Aleks Li, Michelle Yeoh, Vincent Rodriguez III, Rick Zeiff, Damien Haas

Okay fine, China.  I'll watch whatever the fuck this is.

Those who don't pay much attention to what is going on in the film world outside of the American film industry might not have noticed that the highest grossing film of the year is not Lilo & Stitch or Minecraft.  It's actually an animated sequel that was quite the behemoth in its native land of China, not only becoming the highest grossing film in its country but also one of the highest grossing films of all time.  It made so much over there that it became the only non-English movie in the top ten highest grossing films worldwide while also stealing the record of most money grossed in a single country, more than doubling the previous record holder of Star Wars:  The Force Awakens.  Exactly the ratio of tickets sold to money made, I can't say, but even looking at how other movies in the Chinese industry perform, this movie was clearly a cultural phenomenon.  That being said, it hasn't exactly performed all that impressively outside of that market, so these are all feats that are easy to ignore if you're not actively living in China.  The above poster calling it a "global phenomenon" is actually very misleading.  It's actually just a phenomenon in one specific country.  It just happens to be one of the largest, most heavily populated countries in the world.

I'm probably underprepared for this movie.  I haven't seen the original Ne Zha, even though it's available for free on Tubi.  I could have prepared for this by watching it, but I don't have internet right now and didn't want to watch it on my phone, so I just took the hit.  I probably should have given it a shot because I don't know what the fuck is going on but it seems important.  The movie is very intertwined with Chinese mythology and culture, so I accepted that a lot of this was going to fly over my head the minute I decided to watch this.  The movie is about a demon boy and enemy-turned-friend dragon kid who were apparently stuck as spirits after the events of the previous movie.  Due to half-misfortune and half-shenanigans, the dragon kid's reconstructed body is accidentally destroyed, so the two of them have to share the demon boy's body so his spirit doesn't dissolve.  In order to reconstruct the dragon kid's body, demon boy goes on a quest to become an immortal and gain access to a special elixir, but his quest gets sidetracked when a threat to all demons, dragons, and monsters arises.  That's the short version.  This movie is very dense.  There are a lot of cultural things to keep track of just to make heads-or-tails of it.

That being said, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie.  Admittedly, it does take a while to get going with a lot of child-targeted slapstick humor.  It can be hit-or-miss, and this movie does that thing where there is a visual gag and a character actively describes that visual gag out loud thinking that will make it funnier.  It does it a lot, come to think of it.  I would have been ready to dock points for it but I considered whether American films were above undercutting a gag with a verbal punchline and, honestly, I think this is just a kid's movie thing.  This one probably just did it in a way that's funnier to Chinese audiences in their native language.  But the movie can be very funny when it breaks through the cultural barrier (I thought the mid-credit scene was the most amusing thing in the movie).  The movie has a sudden pendulum swing in its second half when it suddenly switches into serious mode and gets really dark.  It's a little jarring because the movie isn't above blood splatter, killing children, and showing off charred corpses.  This is some fucked up shit.  The movie becomes a sweeping fantasy epic with some gorgeously imaginative visuals, looking at times to take influence from the likes of Lord of the Rings, Final Fantasy, and even DragonBall.  If there is one constant in the movie, it's constantly a thrill to look at.  The production, character, and creature design are all visually stimulating.  I never tired of watching the movie, even if it was slow to start.  It's conclusion has some of the most incredible action I've ever seen in an animated movie.

I am going to round up a little bit because I can tell the movie is something special even if it doesn't quite hit the same for an American.  It has some pacing and plotting issues, but I'm willing to overlook them.  I'm okay with this being the highest grossing movie of the year.  It's actually better than most of the movies that are currently in this year's top ten.  Ne Zha 2 is a good movie, and I even think I see why some would consider it a great one.

Primitive War

⭐️⭐️⭐️

🏆"Hurts So Good" Must-See Bad Movie Award🏆

Genre:  Action, Horror, War

Director:  Luke Sparke

Starring:  Ryan Kwanten, Tricia Helfer, Nick Wechsler, Jeremy Piven

Fucking losers:  "There's a new movie in the Coen filmography this weekend!"

People with taste:  "Motherfucking dinosaurs and guns, motherfucker!"

I don't know how a B-movie from Australia wound up being the more fulfilling dinosaur movie option in a year with a Jurassic Park movie but this is the world we live in now, I guess.  Primitive War is based on a book series by Ethan Pettus that I've never heard of but I guess it's popular because there's a few of them.  The movie takes place during the Vietnam War, where a group of soldiers are sent on a rescue mission that uncovers a secret Soviet science project that went haywire, accidentally bringing dinosaurs to present day.  It's pretty dumb stuff, but dumb and bad are not the same thing and never trust anyone that says they are.  Primitive War is a dumb movie that's actually very smartly put together.  You can tell that the movie has certain limitations and it uses them effectively.  The film's computer graphics range from outstanding to middling, but they're always used exactly when they're needed.  The film keeps shots where the dinosaurs and the humans share a frame together at a minimum, which is a trick low budget productions do when they know they can't pull it off convincingly, but the few moments that they do, you can tell the movie took extra care to make them look good.

As for what kind of monster movie this is, it's very Deep Blue Sea coded, with a hint of Dog Soldiers and a dash of Kong:  Skull Island.  The movie is cheesy but never campy.  It takes itself seriously, but characters are unmemorable and interchangeable, so there is no drama to be so serious about.  The movie erupts into pandemonium at various points, with a lot of meaningless deaths and people screaming.  That's just the name of the game, though.  When you have a movie that climaxes with a pair of T-rexes wrecking havoc upon a sinister Russian military camp, nothing else cinema has to offer seems to matter.  In fact, you might as well have just achieved the peak of it 

Relay

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Thriller

Director:  David Mackenzie

Starring:  Riz Ahmed, Lily James, Sam Worthington

Lily James plays a failed whistleblower who wants to return her stolen documents and be left alone, turning to a "relay" service for help, an impartial agency that specializes in complex arrangements with leverage to protect their clients.  The agent assigned is played by Riz Ahmed, who spends half the movie with little to no dialogue, acting through passive facial ticks and light reactions.  He does a lot with very little, playing one of those "guardian angel" types in thrillers like this, like Denzel Washington in The Equalizer or Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser.  Relay isn't quite as fun as either of those movies mostly because it has less personality.  The movie is a slow burn through impartiality for a while, trying to tell an impersonal story that slowly becomes personal.  The transition between the two leaves something to be desired.  That being said, there are two shifts in the movie's narrative, the first being its loss of passiveness and the second being a third-act status quo change that at first glance is jarring but upon reflection is something that checks out and makes the movie more interesting.  Throughout all of this, Ahmed and James are exceptional leads, with Ahmed playing a shut-in finding himself out in the open and James running an absolute gauntlet and hitting every beat like a pro.  The movie is more emotionally distant from its conflict than I'd like it to be, but Ahmed and James make the movie better than it would be without them.

Netflix & Chill

Eenie Meanie

⭐️⭐️

Streaming On:  Hulu

Genre:  Action, Comedy

Director:  Shawn Simmons

Starring:  Samara Weaving, Karl Glusman, Jermaine Fowler, Marshawn Lynch, Randall Park, Steve Zahn, Andy Garcia

I adore Samara Weaving.  I want nothing but good things for her.  I want the best movies.  I want an Oscar.  I want her own film franchise with her name at the top of the poster that grosses a billion dollars with each movie.  I want universal recognition of her cameo on Ash vs. Evil Dead being some of the finest television ever made.  I want Ready or Not to play on loop at my wedding.  This wedding is not to Samara Weaving because I'm realistic, but I also wouldn't say no if she asked.  But if she doesn't want Ready or Not at the wedding, this just won't work out and we better call it off.  You had your chance, Samara Weaving!

I watched Eenie Meanie because she was in it.  I loved Samara Weaving in Eenie Meanie.  I didn't love Eenie Meanie.

Weaving plays a woman with issues.  She used to be her dad's getaway driver at the tender age of fourteen and now she is grown-up with a fucked-up life and, on top of everything else, she's pregnant with her fucked-up ex's baby.  When she goes to his house to tell him, she finds him neck-deep in trouble.  The only way to get him out:  one more heist with her as the driver.  Eenie Meanie is a heist getaway driver romcom, though we've already achieved perfection in that genre with Baby Driver and I'm not convinced Eenie Meanie stands on its own two feet like that movie does.  I'm okay with Baby Driver being influential, though if copycats are going to exist, I'd rather them be more thrilling and funny than Eenie Meanie is.  For a heist movie, the heist story is pretty barren.  The action is okay, but there isn't enough of it.  The comedy is plentiful, but it only lands sparingly.  There are things in this movie that made me laugh quite a bit, if I'm being honest.  There is a gag involving a birthday party that I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe at.  There's a car safety joke that's really well executed and got me cackling.  And Weaving steals the movie from everyone else with her reaction shots.  These are few and far between and not enough to make this thinly written movie fly.

There are some interesting touches to the film.  I think I see what the movie is trying to do with its themes of toxic relationships and how the climax turns the cute romcom aspects into a romantic tragedy.  There are things that could have saved this movie, it just doesn't embellish them and it doesn't weild it's themes more consistently.  The best moments of Eenie Meanie made me wish I had more positive things to say about it.  But really the only thing I got out of it is that I got to see Samara Weaving as an action hero.  That's pretty neat.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

The Bad Guys 2 ⭐️⭐️1/2

F1 ⭐️⭐️

The Fantastic 4:  First Steps ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Freakier Friday ⭐️⭐️1/2

How to Train Your Dragon ⭐️

Jurassic World:  Rebirth ⭐️1/2

The Naked Gun ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Nobody 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shin Godzilla ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sketch ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Superman ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Weapons ⭐️⭐️⭐️

New To Digital

The Bad Guys 2 ⭐️⭐️1/2

Elio ⭐️⭐️1/2

F1 ⭐️⭐️

House on Eden ⭐️1/2

Mission:  Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two ⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Physical

Bring Her Back ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Perpetrator ⭐️

Coming Soon!

Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 33 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Americana.

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Comedy, Thriller

Director:  Tony Tost

Starring:  Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, Halsey, Simon Rex, Eric Dane, Zahn McClarnon

Someone in Hollywood seems convinced that I think about Sydney Sweeney more often than I do.  My news feed gets littered with news about what dress she's wearing and whenever, while others are trying to sell me her on her own brand of soap, and right-wing nuts on YouTube are telling me that I'm trigger'd because she wears pants or something, I don't fucking know.  Things about Sydney Sweeney failed to make sense a long time ago.  I only know two things about her:  she's very attractive and I have yet to see her in a movie that's actually any good.  The closest has been the horror movie Immaculate, which was a boring nothing that was only written to pad out until it got to the only portion of the movie that had any vision, which was an ending where a woman caves a baby's head in with a rock.  Americana didn't break that losing streak.

Sweeney plays a waitress who strikes an unlikely bond with Paul Walter Hauser and the two find themselves neck deep on a caper seeking out a Native American artifact that is leaving a bloodtrail across South Dakota across various vignette segments.  Americana is the type of movie made by someone who has seen every Tarantino movie a hundred times and makes it his sacred mission to make "socially awkward white trash Pulp Fiction."  The movie feels like it was made with focus but scripted with callousness, not really understanding the story it's telling but opting to simply throw idiosyncrasies at the wall and hope they work out for it.  The movie wants to be peppy, funny, and unexpected while not exactly supporting any of those aspects.  It's easy-going enough, though its habit of going ride-or-die with some of the weirdest plot contrivances makes it less endearing than it thinks it is.  If nothing else, the movie has a mask of confidence to cover for it wandering around aimlessly.  That's almost impressive by itself.

East of Wall

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Kate Beecroft

Starring:  Tabitha Zimiga, Porshia Zimiga, Scoot McNairy, Jennifer Ehle

Filmed in South Dakota, East of Wall features real-life mother/daughter duo Tabitha and Porschia Zimiga playing fictionalized versions of themselves, living on a family ranch in the wake of the death of Tabitha's husband and struggling to make ends meet.  Tabitha works to sell horses, house children in need, and fend off offers to buy her land.  Movies like this strive for an art in authenticity over storytelling but it's very easy to make it a shitshow when you're working with a group of amateurs (see:  Clint Eastwood dramatizing a terrorist event with actual people who lived through it in The 15:17 to Paris).  For a movie centered on a bunch of non-actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves, the acting is better than we've come to expect in productions like this.  It's a movie that actually does achieve that far-reaching authenticity that escapes the grasp of many.  Does it succeed at everything?  Not entirely.  The movie's cautious and quiet approach to the story can be repetitious with its slow burn, sometimes needlessly wallowing in similar scenes more than once.  The movie does find life in its finale, giving heavier dramatic moments and allowing the leads to impress in several affective moments.  The movie is otherwise a slight but beautiful-looking debut for Kate Beecroft, who mostly films like a docudrama but intercuts with some stunning cinematography.  It's worth a look, especially if you're invested in ranch culture.  But there are also a few filmmaking techniques that amateur artist might find inspiring.

Jimmy and Stiggs

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Horror, Comedy

Director:  Joe Begos

Starring:  Joe Begos, Matt Mercer

Made by guys who had a lot of paint, a blacklight, and a dream, Jimmy and Stiggs also feels like a movie made by people whose only reference points for human culture were late-80's MTV and the video game Doom.  The rather simplistic low budget movie sees director Joe Begos play a down-on-his-lucky director (self-portrait?) named Jimmy, who finds himself trapped in his apartment with his best friend Stiggs, and the duo are under attack by aliens.  But if you ask me, these two deserve what they get.  I mean, Jimmy has a Cannibal Holocaust poster on display.  Who the fuck has a Cannibal Holocaust poster?

The movie itself feels largely a love letter to Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, and Rob Zombie.  The movie barely has any story and it's visual storytelling seems intent on being a rambunctious acid trip.  A lot of its aesthetic is made up by blacklight, neon, and bunch of rubber alien dolls.  Very little in the movie looks realistic, but the movie does save its dollars for several impressive practical shots for the climax.  The movie's sole ambition is to be relentless violence, and it succeeds modestly.  I admire the movie's spirit but I just didn't have very much fun watching it.  Jimmy and Stiggs are not endearing characters and their only purpose in the film is to exclaim and curse at each other.  I both respect and appreciate this movie's dedication to being nothing but chaotic, low budget, bloody violence.  I just wish they found a more endearing package to deliver it in than one that grunts and screams incoherently for eighty minutes.

Incidentally, this is one of those movies that starts out with fake trailers.  What I find funny is that both fake trailers looked like they had a higher budget than the entire movie.  Hell, one of them even had narration by Snoop Dogg.  That was probably the highest bill, right there.

Nobody 2

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Action, Comedy

Director:  Timo Tjahjanto

Starring:  Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielson, John Ortiz, RZA, Colin Hanks, Christopher Lloyd, Sharon Stone, Colin Salmon

Bob Odinkirk returns to the role that casually saved his life a few years ago, as the stunt and fitness training on the original Nobody actually put him in a shape that helped him survive his heart attack in 2021.  And who says action movies bring nothing of value to the world?

Nobody 2 returns us to the "quiet life" of Hutch Mansell, the suburban dad who is secretly an agent with John Wick level skills.  Needing a break from the stress of killing a lot of people, Hutch and his family go on vacation at a spot he remembers fondly from his childhood.  Unbeknownst to him, there is a underground bootlegging ring there, which puts Hutch directly in the path of the crooked law enforcement and mad criminal tycoon Sharon Stone.  It's been a while since I've properly seen Sharon Stone in a movie.  Even then, I have a gut feeling she only spent two days filming her stuff because she's not in this that much.  Still, it's good to see her.  As for the movie itself, it's more Nobody chaos.  Those looking for the simple pleasures of seeing Bob Odenkirk being the most dangerous man in the room will find that Nobody 2 is a delight from its sunny start of family bonding to its booby trapped amusement park finale that just makes the movie Home Alone with a body count.  Say what you will about the Nobody movies, but if you don't see the therapeutic nature to seeing a meek-looking Odenkirk lay waste to a group of thugs who are trying to bully him, then your objectivity might be broken.

MST Note:  Future War star Daniel Bernhardt has a role as one of Sharon Stone's goons in this movie.

Went Up the Hill

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Drama, Horror

Director:  Samuel Van Grinsven

Starring:  Dacre Montgomery, Vicky Krieps

Went Up the Hill was a bit of rocky ride for me, let me tell you.  There are legitimate arguments that the movie is very good and legitimate arguments that the movie is dully mediocre.  Ultimately, I'm going to split the difference and round slightly down because the movie's Jack & Jill motif is annoyingly purposeless.  I'm going to blame the movie for this because I feel like it.

Former Power Ranger Dacre Montgomery attends his mother's funeral and stays at her home with her widowed wife Vicky Krieps.  They find that every night, the deceased woman is still present, taking turns possessing their bodies.  It took me a good long while to meet this movie at its own wavelength because for a time the film seemingly is about grief and holding onto a lost loved one but it was being told with cold, detached performances and seemed to only be half an idea, at best.  Patience eventually rewarded me as it eventually becomes clear that the movie isn't about grief at all and is actually about abuse victims.  The reason Montgomery and Krieps are so withdrawn in this movie is due to a timidness in laying to rest someone who has hurt them physically and emotionally.  Halfway through the movie, they start showing that the emotion they're withholding is actually pent up fear and anger, turning their performances from being dull into being exceptional.  It's a movie about a haunting that's also about being haunted, and that's kind of brilliant.  Unfortunately, it frustrates as it milks the drama unnecessarily and collapses upon itself as its metaphors go off-the-rails in the climax.  There is a ton of good stuff in this movie, but its story is drowning in the artistic expression.  It's a cautious recommendation on the basis that it's certainly a movie that specific film goers will forgive its flaws much easier because the story it's trying to tell is so powerful.

Witchboard

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Chuck Russell

Starring:  Madison Iseman, Aaron Dominguez, Melanie Jarnson, Charlie Tahan, Antonia Desplat, Jamie Campbell Bower

🏆"Hurts So Good" Must-See Bad Movie Award🏆

When the world runs out of brand name horror franchises to reboot, we must turn to the obscure ones.  Witchboard is a trilogy from yesteryear that genre aficionados who jump into the niche corners of the video store might have heard of, though personally the only reason I know it at all is because the original 1986 film was on The Last Drive-In a few years ago.  Whether that makes me a fake horror fan or not is up to you to decide, but in all frankness, even though I did see it, I barely remember it.  I remember the movie being a rather base movie about friends playing with a Ouija board and dying.  But remaking that franchise idea is going to be difficult when Ouija has practically been played out by trying to franchise it into its own brand name horror franchise, though the only one worth a damn was Mike Flanagan's Ouija:  Origin of Evil.  The decision to bring Witchboard back after that franchise raises an eyebrow, but the film is more of a ground-up reinvention than a remake.  Witchboard got a glossy, sexy makeover.

Instead of a traditional Ouija, the new Witchboard is a redesigned "pendulum board," which guides the user based on the swing of a spooky pendant on a string.  Lady lead Madison Iseman finds it in the woods and does what all curious cats do and starts playing with it.  People start dying, Iseman finds herself haunted by a scarred witch lady, and a cat won't stop hanging around and stealing dismembered hands.  I'm not joking.  The cat steals hands.  There's a whole scene where some dude chases it with a meat cleaver, which is an extreme reaction to have to a cat but admittedly it has been a weird day for him and the cat stole a hand.  The whole production is extreme like this in a daft and plastic way.  The movie looks and feels unapologetically phony, being a macabre showcase of animated blood and carnage wrought on artificial people.  Horror geeks who vibe with the tone will enjoy it more than others, which meant I was vibing with most of it.

The film is advertised as being directed by "horror master" Chuck Russell, which is not how I've ever thought of Chuck Russell, but whatever.  Russell has directed only three other horror movies in his career:  Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (which is great), the 80's remake of The Blob (which has its moments), and Bless the Child (which I don't remember).  He also directed The Mask, which started production as a horror movie but switched gears when Jim Carrey signed on to star.  He also hasn't really had a Hollywood presence since 2002 when he made The Scorpion King, and he certainly feels as if he's out of practice.  There's a certain devil-may-care nature to the movie's theatricality which feels more at home in 80's horror.  The movie isn't focused on being anything in particular, just something silly you might find on streaming and get a laugh out of.  I'm not entirely sure what it's actually trying to sell me otherwise, although it's at least getting some mileage out of hiring Madison Iseman as the lead.  Iseman is not someone I'd normally consider high on my list of overlooled acting talents but she has always presented herself as a minor gem when she pops up in movies like this.  In Witchboard, she is taking a thankless part and she's actually trying to show acting chops, clashing hard with the stilted dialogue she's given, but she's the one castmember that's trying to come off as genuine in a fake prism.  That's more than this movie deserves, but it gives it a bit of soul to prop up its playfulness and turn it into a minor knee-slapper of splatter.

Netflix & Chill

Night Always Comes

⭐️⭐️1/2

Streaming On:  Netflix

Genre:  Drama, Thriller

Director:  Benjamin Caron

Starring:  Vanessa Kirby, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Zack Gottsagen, Stephan James, Randall Park, Julia Fox, Michael Kelly, Eli Roth

Vanessa Kirby stars in this generally faithful adaptation of the 2021 novel of the same name, where she plays a woman working several jobs to support herself, her mother, and her brother with Down Syndrome.  When her mother spends what was supposed to be the money for the down payment on their house, Kirby spends the night trying to raise $25,000 in a hurry, by hook or crook.  Fans of the book will probably be pleased with this adaptation, as it's mostly true to outline of the story, even if it's simplified somewhat, though it doesn't exactly use the opportunity to clean up some of it's messier storytelling methods.  Night Always Comes gunshots us with information at relevant points, which can sometimes be overwhelming.  The structure of the novel tries to use this to allow us to learn more about Kirby's character as it goes, though a movie can't explain a complex history the way a book can.  The movie does the best it can with what it has, keeping the relevant notions base to keep the narrative from getting distracted.  The biggest change in the narrative hits with a cameo from Eli Roth in the climax, a sequence that replaces one that is far different than its book counterpart, but establishes Kirby's mental state and emotional issues so the audience can see it rather than being told about it in dialogue.  Whether it's a necessary change or not depends on what you feel the movie needed at this point.  Kirby does sell it, though, and is uniformly fantastic throughout.

The movie does tend to make the environments less unappealing.  The book goes to scummy places, they've just been made Hollywood scummy as opposed to "I feel like I'll get herpes from touching anything in here" scummy.  Stephan James character, for example, is more approachable in the movie than he is in the book.  Characters, in general, are given a Hollywoodized makeover.  Her handicapped brother is played by Peanut Butter Falcon star Zack Gottsagen, who plays a less cognitively-impaired version of the character that's in the book, likely because of a "rule" that was put forth in Tropic Thunder (you know the one, I'm not saying it, but you know what it is).  The movie also lets him tag along for a brief period, probably to give him more to do.  Gottsagen still doesn't do much, but his character is more of a plot motivation than an actual player in the book and there wasn't much you could do with him.

Both the book and the movie have their flaws, but the theme of the story being about the degradation of the American Dream and the perceived futility of even trying to achieve it is pretty sound, depicting a woman who can't stand on her two feet because she's struggling to stay afloat.  The movie has less hefty monologues explaining it to the audience, which is a more palletable version of it, but I'm also not sure it gets its point across as strongly.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

The Bad Guys 2 ⭐️⭐️1/2

F1 ⭐️⭐️

The Fantastic 4:  First Steps ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Freakier Friday ⭐️⭐️1/2

Jurassic World:  Rebirth ⭐️1/2

My Mother's Wdding ⭐️⭐️

The Naked Gun ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shin Godzilla ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sketch ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Superman ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Together ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Weapons ⭐️⭐️⭐️

New To Digital

Eddington ⭐️⭐️

Smurfs ⭐️1/2

Superman ⭐️⭐️⭐️

New To Physical

The Accountant² ⭐️⭐️⭐️

How to Train Your Dragon ⭐️

Coming Soon!

Cinema Playgriound Journal 2025: Week 32 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Freakier Friday

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy, Fantasy

Director:  Nisha Ganatra

Starring:  Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Mark Harmon

Truth-be-told, I haven't seen Freaky Friday.  Neither the original with Jodie Foster nor the more currently relevant remake with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan.  It's like Mean Girls, where it was a cultural phenomenon for Millennials that came out when I had just barely grown out of that demographic, and I always assumed that the movie was exactly what I imagined it to be, so I never felt the urge to catch up.  I have, however, seen the horror parody Freaky and the Netflix knock-off Family Switch.  I don't know if that means anything, but those are things that happened.

Taking place several decades after the previous film, Lindsay Lohan is now a mom herself, raising her own teenage hellian in Julia Butters.  Lohan then falls in love with the father of Butters' high school rival, Sophia Hammons, and they become engaged, meaning the two girls with a turmoltuous relationship will soon be stepsisters.  One wacky comedic hex later, Butters and Hammons swap bodies with mommy Lohan and grandmother Jamie Lee Curtis.  How Curtis got sucked up into this and why one of them needed to be the grandmother, I'm not certain.  If I'm being honest, she seems entirely irrelevant to the story and is only here because she was in the first movie.  That's probably the primary takeaway from this movie, in that it plays like a TV reunion movie.  It feels more like a play for nostalgic love from Millennial fans of the previous film rather than trying to work up new fans in Gen Z or Alpha.  It might succeed at that modest ambition, but it also seems hopelessly stuck in the past.  When the movie switches Lohan and Curtis's personalities into younger bodies, it doesn't really have very much for the younger actresses to actually do, they just spend their time joyriding.  The teenagers trapped in the older bodies are more relevant to the story the movie is trying to tell, as the girls call a truce to try and prevent Lohan's pending marriage from going forward.  The children are the only ones with an actual arc in the movie, while the elders stuck in youthful bodies are only in this movie to be like "Being young is awesome!"  This keeps Lohan and Curtis center-stage but it's at the cost of giving actual relevance to their own characters.

Some of the gagwork is pretty funny, so those coming for the comedy won't be disappointed.  I quite liked Vanessa Bayer as the fortune teller.  There's an immigration interview where that teen-swapped Lohan tries to sabotage that is probably the highlight of the movie.  But they are countered by other gags that are more oddity.  A teenager stuck in Lindsay Lohan's body awkwardly trying to flirt doesn't seem like proper generational gap humor to me, but I'm assuming the people who made this movie watched Karen Gillan in Jumanji:  Welcome to the Jungle and decided all body swap movies are the same and nobody would notice if they stole her bit.  I also think it's odd that Curtis didn't adopt a British accent when she swapped with Hammons, as the accent just stays put with the body.  An accent isn't a physical attribute but rather an acquired reflexive memory based on teaching and environment, so the stepdaughter character losing her British accent after becoming Jamie Lee Curtis makes zero sense.  The movie is so aloof that it probably doesn't matter.  I suppose what's disappointing is that the movie aims for not mattering.  If you're a fan of the original, this is probably worth a look because it's just more of it.  Bonus points for that.

My Mother's Wedding

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Kristen Scott Thomas

Starring:  Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, Emily Beecham, Kristen Scott Thomas, Freida Pinto, Thibault de Montalembert

Actress Kristen Scott Thomas makes her directorial debut with My Mother's Wedding, a sentimental family drama that is pretty much what you'd assume it is based on the title, chronicling three adult daughters coping with the fact that their widowed mother is remarrying.  Scott Thomas wants to recreate the lost art of those calm chick flicks about sisters that moms would rent from the video store while dads picked up Lethal Weapon and kids watched Toy Story for the billionth time.  I think she has done so adequately, even if My Mother's Wedding doesn't prove itself to be anything particularly memorable.  Scott Thomas does have some interesting flourishes that she provides, including using sketchy animation for flashback sequences.  It's actually pretty smart, because it saves from casting new actors for vintage scenes and allows the film to be just that much sweeter to its target audience.  The movie is just so willowy and awkward, though.  Half the cast is American pretending to be British, and Scarlett Johansson's accent is so forced that it sounds like she's openly mocking her castmates.  It's an unusually bad performance from a usually dependable actress.  It's plot progression can be odd, including unfaithful spouses being unveiled (in a scene that I think is supposed to be funny for some reason?) and Johansson's girlfriend who doing a weird secretive artificial insemination and thought that would convince Johansson to marry her or something (this is the type of ass-backwards thinking that only happens when you're in a relationship and you're trying to do a big romantic gesture, only for your partner to look at you like you're insane and go "wut? but why tho?").  It's trying to be flowery life drama comfort food and commits to the bit, but it just blows out air and flutters away like a deflating balloon.

Sketch

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Fantasy

Director:  Seth Worley

Starring:  Tony Hale, D'Arcy Carden, Bianca Belle, Kue Lawrence, Kalon Kox

What the fuck?  An Angel Studios film that isn't dumpster-diving faith pandering?  And it's actually legitimately fun and charming?  This has to be fever-induced death hallucination.  Anybody who has ever heard me talk about movies for the last few years has undoubtedly heard me pummel the small company that specializes in Christian media.  I have held nothing back as I've sat through waves of their filmmaking that are not just outside my demographic but a failure at even being a quality option for their own audience.  If Angel Studios wants to make faith and life-affirming dramas, power to them.  Could they at least make them good?

I need people to know my stance on this so they know that I fully mean it when I say Sketch is actually kind of awesome.

Sketch centers on a young girl coping with the death of her mother, drawing sketches of monsters in her notebook as as outlet for her depression and anger.  In true family fantasy movie fashion, her brother finds a magic pond in the woods that somehow rejuvenates things and her notebook falls into it, bringing all of her sketches to life.  And since they all come from a dark mindset, this is bad.  The movie has a lot to say about depression and mourning, as well as the mentality of young children who are looking for ways to channel their emotions and don't always have the support they need to do so.  Because of that, the movie goes to some dark and deep places.  It centers on ideas that if they had come from a different production of this same studio, it would have only skimmed the surface with the message of "Bad feelings bad, try having good feelings instead."  Instead, the characters are three-dimensional, each with reasons for withdrawing and mourning the way they have chosen to do so.  The father has chosen "We don't talk about this because it hurts too much" and his children have to stew and nobody to really confide their own emotions in.  The sister has her notebook, while her brother takes their mother's ashes and tries to bring her back to life in the magic pond, only to be stopped when giant monsters are brought to life.  But one does wonder what would have happened if he had succeeded.

This movie could have been Pet Sematary so easily.

But as deep as the movie can be, it is very wondrous and funny as well.  The movie understands the sense of magic a movie like this should have, which was astoundingly absent from How to Train Your Dragon a few months ago.  And it's pretty well made, too.  I knew this was going to be Angel's best movie early on when I saw the cinematography and thought "Oh my god, this actually looks like a real movie and not a rough approximation of one."  This is so not Angel's style that I'm assuming this movie had to have been an acquisition rather than anything they put money into, but it just so-happens to be a sweet family-centered movie that is pretty clean-minded save for a few jokes about butts, so it would understandably play well with their demographic.  The humor of the picture is reasonably simple, but it's always based on characterization and the dynamic of everyone's relationship.  Because of that, the movie is full of heartwarming chuckles that one might relate to their own personal bonds.  Add in the fact that the movie's imaginative creature design creates beings that are all constantly interesting to look at, both cute and a little scary at the same time.  It all gels together beautifully.  Compare this to a similar "art comes to life" family film from last year, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Sketch is a similar concept that succeeds in being a fully-fledged movie rather than an empty showcase of special effects.

The one thing that is a little off-putting about this movie is that most of the beasties that come to life are meant to be avatars for harming people and objects, and they do seem to be widespread and viciously attacking throughout the movie.  The movie has no interest in being a horror movie, but it tip-toes too much around how dangerous they actually are to anybody.  It never confirms nor denies whether people are getting hurt, even though common sense dictates that there should be.  That's probably the downside of being in a studio that demands squeaky-clean kids movies, though I imagine that if this movie were made in the 80's, we would have seen much more fucked up shit.  At the same time, Sketch reminds me a lot of the type of rambunctious fantasy movies that came out of that era and it's on the right path of recreating them.  It's so adventurous, enchanting, and sweet that I can't help but fall under its spell.  I would have loved this movie if I were nine-years-old, and I would have watched it over and over again until my parents yelled at me to find something else.  That tells me that this movie did damn near everything right.

Strange Harvest

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Horror, Mockumentary

Director:  Stuart Ortiz

Starring:  Peter Zizzo, Terri Apple, Andy Lauer, Matthew Peschio

I think we've all seen a movie where we all respond "I see what you want to do.  This ain't it, but you tried."  If only we gave out rewards for understanding intentions, but if we did that, then I would have rated that War of the Worlds movie higher last week.  I didn't, it was bad, and the people who made it need to know it's bad so they never do it again.  Strange Harvest is a better movie, but it's also a movie that fumbles the ball when it comes to achieving its own goals.  This movie is a occult slasher movie presented as a true crime mockumentary, documenting the murders of mysterious serial killer "Mr. Shiny" and the strange occurrences surrounding them.  At the movie's best moments, it's easy to get sucked into the presentation, but occasionally it will slip up in its framing device to make you go "Oh, this kinda sucks, actually."  It happens early on, when an interviewee refers to her deceased friend as a "dope-ass bitch" but says the term of endearment in a way that makes it clear she has never said those words in that order in her life, at which point I sighed and thought "Okay, so that's how it's going to be."  To be fair, when it gets into the grisly details, the movie can successfully be unsettling, but the film's inconsistent talking head performances range from mildly boring to improvizational nightmare.  It's just not an effective storytelling device because it never sells the people relating the story.  The movie's high points come when it finally gives us Mr. Shiny footage, which the filmmakers seem to realize because they put all that they had into the trailers.  There's a rawness to the filmed murder sequences that breathes life into the movie when it desperately needs it, but even then it can't quite shake it's feeling of being completely staged.  It's just kind of weirdly inconsistent with itself, with little things like the film saying he doesn't leave fingerprints behind but the footage showing that he never wears gloves.  Then there are the larger picture details, because the movie shows the aftermath of a lot of decomposing corpses, including children, but then it gets to a dog that happened to be killed along the way and it chooses to censor it.  I know killing animals and pets is a sort of taboo in movies, but it's such a strange choice that it almost accidentally becomes funny.  Strange Harvest is so focused on feeling real that when it feels fake (which is quite often) it almost seems like it's betraying the audience.  Honestly, I think the film only failed itself.

Weapons

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Zach Cregger

Starring:  Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Cary Christopher, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan

Following up a breakout success can be daunting for a filmmaker.  The one thing you don't want to become is M. Night Shyamalan, who was told he was good at something that one time and spent his entire career afterward seemingly trying to prove the people who praised him wrong.  Zach Cregger is in a similar position, where he had a below-the-radar career in comedy that went nowhere, decided to make a horror movie, and the feedback was "This fucking rocks.  What else you got?"  Cregger doubling down on being a "horror master" can either prove Barbarian a fluke and go the way of Shyamalan or unearth the diamond in the rough and put him on the same pedestal as Jordan Peele.  Weapons shows enough promise in Cregger being someone to keep an eye on, though I found my response to be more subdued than Barbarian.

As one can gleen from the trailer, Weapons is the story of a town in turmoil, trying to solve the mystery of seventeen vanished children from the same classroom who all mysteriously fled from their houses in the middle of the night.  Discovering where it goes from there is part of the experience, so I'll refrain from saying more than that.  Without getting too spoiler-heavy, Weapons is one of those movies that is presented like a set of short films, similar to Pulp Ficton or, more horror relevant, Ju-On.  Each segment centers on a character seeing the events play out from their perspective, providing a little more context and even more questions as it goes.  Some segments are more interesting than others, and I'd even argue that Alden Ehrenreich's could have been cut entirely because it adds almost nothing.  This segment highlights the film beginning to have a struggle with pacing, because it's constantly tip-toeing around it's mystery while saving everything for a climactic info-dump, and that info-dump takes so long that it's practically tension-free.  Like Barbarian, the film is written to subvert expectations as to what's around the next corner, but where we're heading begins to feel stagnant after a while because all clues are leading to the same place and we're just waiting for other characters to catch up.  What I will say about the mystery as it's uncovered is that the big reveal is actually spoiled in the title card if you bother to notice a little flourish in it.  But even if you do get what the movie is aggressively hinting at, there's still the mystery of its source, so it's not too problematic.

But, as a fan of Barbarian, I had a pretty good time watching this.  Cregger has this trolling aspect to his direction where he will linger on certain things long enough to create discomfort, then reveal the one thing that makes it even more stressful, only to linger and create more discomfort.  That's how I'd describe Weapons, a discomforting horror movie rather than a scary one.  But I think that's part of his horror appeal, because he has this Sam Raimi-like tendency to fuck with his audience like that.  If Cregger is an artist of anything, it's waiting for the reveal, because he knows when his audience is anxious and he looks at any given scene and goes "lol, no, hold on, just a second more."  He's a tease.  If I had one issue with Weapons, it would be that he concentrates too much on foreplay and the film never seems to get to the main event that we're all revving up for.  That's just more of an observation than anything that genuinely hurts the film, because it certainly hits the right spot in the heat of thr moment.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

The Bad Guys 2 ⭐️⭐️1/2

F1 ⭐️⭐️

The Fantastic 4:  First Steps ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Jurassic World:  Rebirth ⭐️1/2

The Naked Gun ⭐️⭐️⭐️

She Rides Shotgun ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Superman ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Together ⭐️⭐️⭐️

New To Digital

The Accountant² ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Jurassic World:  Rebirth ⭐️1/2

Sorry, Baby ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Physical

Friendship ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!